Currency issues are short term things. The demonstrated ability to build a product that blows away the competition, that's a long term competitive advantage that remains after this latest nervous-nellie panty bunch-up over exchange rate volatility goes away. These wall street types fall apart over every little thing. What pansies.

Actually "monopolistic" is not the same as "monopoly". You can have a monopolistic market even without a monopoly. And both theoretically and in practice there is not much difference in the market outcomes of an overwhelmingly dominant firm and a monopoly. I would describe Amazon's position in the eBook market as overwhelmingly or close to overwhelmingly dominant, especially after the DoJ handed them the keys to the kingdom.

Well it's lobbying by Amazon and stupidity by the DoJ. I'm amazed that nobody at the DoJ looked at the big picture and said "Hey guys, you realize what we're doing here, right? We're putting back together a monopoly that had been decimated by new competition. I don't think that is something that aligns with our department's mission." Instead, after the verdict, I read news stories of the prosecutors congratulating themselves for a job well done.

And with government protection! No other company in the US can claim that privilege. Which is why this case is so egregious and should be appealed all the way to the supreme court if necessary. We cannot have this precedent where the DoJ stepped in, took legislation meant to prevent against monopolistic abuse, and standing the legislation on its head, used it to actually restore and protect a monopoly that had been torn down by a new entrant! When did antitrust...

Valuations are based on expectations of future profit. If people's perceptions about Apple's profitability drastically change from one moment to the next (such as the day before the watch is released for sale and the day sales figures get reported), AAPL can easily increase 50% over the next 13.5 months. (Or go the opposite way.) Look, Nov 22 last year, AAPL was at 74.26, today it's around 115. That's about a 45% increase in a year.